CNN has posted a video of Larry King’s interview with Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  I took the time this morning to watch and came away with two main observations:

1. It greatly increase my respect for and admiration of the Iranian president.  He is both intelligent and tactful in his response and also seems genuine.

2. Larry King, all things considered, did a pretty good job of letting Ahmadinejad talk without bombarding him with ridiculous accusations and misquotes (although he did not shy away from many of the dumb controversial questions that many Americans have asked).

Above all else, however, I came away with a new understanding about the Iranian position on Israel.  Although many people in the west commonly assume that Iran wishes for Israel to be destroyed (whatever that actually means), the words of the Iranian president were quite different.

He apparently advocates something that few Americans, Israelis, or even Palestinians dare to even consider: a one-state solution.  For decades now we’ve been inundated with the concept of two states, both a Jewish one and a Palestinian one.  But the only truly fair solution, according to Ahmadinejad, is for the people of that region to unite under one state, hold a referendum for the future makeup of their new government, and reform their country into something open, democratic, and just.

This, of course, would mean that the Palestinians, especially if one includes the ones who are living in exile, would hold a majority vote, just as the black South Africans did when the Apartheid regime was overturned.  Had they instead formed a separate “black” state, they would have been isolated and decimated by their white counterparts.

The real reason for the insistence upon the two-state solution is that it is the only way to preserve a “Jewish” state.  Although westerners commonly refer to Israel as “the only democratic state in the middle east,” it is actually anything but democratic.  It serves the interests of Jews and Jews alone.  It ignores the rights even of the arabs who are citizens while also denying citizenship to the majority of Palestinians.

To give the Palestinians citizenship in Israel would effectively end the reign of the Zionist (Apartheid) regime.  Replacing it with something democratic and free for both Jews and Palestinians is the only way to ensure lasting freedom and success for both parties.

This is Iran’s stance on the issue.  It is not one of violent uphevil and extermination of the Jewish people.  It is a stance that is probably the only realistic (yet bitter-tasting) solution if the Israelis expect to ever live without fear and the Palestinans ever hope to truly have freedom.

Just some excerpts from a great article:

But is Barack taking his own advice? For he pledges to shift two U.S. combat brigades, 10,000 troops, out of Iraq and into Afghanistan, raising Americanforces in that country from 33,000 to 43,000.

For, without any visible strategy for victory, Barack is recommending thesame course LBJ took after the death of JFK. Johnson bombed North Vietnam in 1964, landed Marines in 1965 and built U.S. forces from 16,000 advisers on Nov. 22, 1963, to 525,000 troops in January of 1969.

The Soviet Union, whose 115,000-man army in Afghanistan reached more than twice the size of U.S.-NATO forces, even with the Obama surge, went home defeated in 1988. The Soviet Empire did not survive that humiliation.

Obama – and John McCain, who has endorsed the build-up – should, before committing any more combat brigades, explain how and when this war ends in an American victory. For as of today, the Afghan war resembles Vietnam far more than Iraq ever did.

As I suspected, Barack Obama carries the same understanding of the Iraq war that most other democrats have: “We need to get out of Iraq because we’re losing.” The same democrats who were opposed to it are now calling for an end, not because it is morally wrong to occupy another nation and take so many innocent Iraqi lives, but because the “cost” has been too high for American to bear.

Obama and the other democrats want to continue the war in Afghanistan. He intends to send some of those PTSD patients currently serving their 2nd, 3rd, or even 5th campaigns in Iraq and dropped them into the heart of Taliban inssurection. This comes at a time when more Afghan civilians are being slaughtered by indiscriminate U.S. bombing raids. The total number of innocent Afghans killed has far exceeded the number of Americans killed on 9/11.

Therefore, it is clearn that Mr. Obama is not interested in peace, rather he wants a war he thinks we can win. Well, I hate to disappoint you, Senator, but America is not winning in Afghanistan, and they will never win. No one ever has.

Once again I managed to beat Imam Zaid Shakir to the punch with my article about Obama’s love affair with the AIPAC, but that is probably only because he took the time to ponder over it and write something much more elqouent and powerful. His article is certainly worth a read.

In their 2006 working paper The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government professor Stephen Walt accuse AIPAC of being “the most powerful and best known” component of a larger pro-Israel lobby that, they say, distorts American foreign policy. They write: “AIPAC’s success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. … AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the myriad pro-Israel PACs. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the other hand, can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to their political opponents. … The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress. Open debate about U.S. policy towards Israel does not occur there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.”

Cited on Wikipedia 

It seems very few have been willing to admit what we really knew all along: Barack Obama is just another American politician. He is not some savior of humanity, as some would like to portray him, and he is certainly not going to step on the toes of the corporate demons who fund his campaign.

In times such as these, when America is being ruled by a president who will do anything to please his corporate sponsors, whose policies have killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, sacrificed thousands of American soldiers, opened the door for torture, championed the imprisonment of innocent people, and welcomed the contempt and disgust of the entire world, there is something the American people need more than politics as usual.

The American people need morality and honesty. Above all else, a leader who is willing to do what is right and to speak the truth even when he does wrong is the type of leader who can truly turn this country and this race (the human one) away from the brink of extinction that it has now brought upon itself.

Instead, Obama has become glossy eyed with the prospect of becoming president and is willing to bend over backwards for Israel and the AIPAC, even if it means echoing Israel’s call to attack Iran, a country that has not invaded nor even threatened to attack another country (something even Iraq could not claim).

Obama sounds like Bush, albeit a more eloquent and intelligent upgrade from the first two Bush versions. He proudly proclaimed, “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.”

The evidence, Senator Obama, indicates that Iran is not even trying to obtain a nuclear weapon, so why even mention this? You might very well pressure Iran into doing the very thing you swear you will prevent them from doing. And what does “everything in my power” mean? Surely, a president’s power includes control over the military. Obama is threatening to attack Iran. That is not quite as strong as Hillary Clinton’s language, but the end result would be the same.

” … There is no greater threat to Israel or peace than Iran,” he went on to say.

Any intelligent (and honest) person can easily see that the greatest threat to Israel and peace is Israel itself. It is Israel that invaded Palestinian territory. It is Israel that drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land. It is Israel that committed massacres, one after another, against thousands of innocent Palestinians. It is Israel that continues to hold scores of Palestinians in dungeons, without any formal charges against them. It is Israel that has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran, not the other way around. It is Israel with the track record of invading another country (Lebanon) and occupying it for 20 years, not Iran. It is Israel that has nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the NPT. It is Israel that has had over 40 U.N. resolutions passed against it condemning its atrocities, yet it refuses to take heed of any of them. It is Israel, Senator Obama, that forces the Palestinians to live in Apartheid-like conditions, and that is not just my opinion, Senator Obama. Former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, agree.

So like Reagan, Senator Obama, you are supporting yet another Apartheid regime, another regime that has acquired and is threatening to use its nuclear weapons against a country that is guilty only of defending the rights and lives of the Palestinian people when everyone else in the world, including you, Senator Obama, is unwilling, or too much of a coward, to do so.

Obama was not finished. He continued with, “This audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. And the enemies of Israel should have no doubt that regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in support of Israel’s security. …”

Do we? Do Americans really care about Israel’s security while the policies of our own government continue to degrade our own security? Senator Obama wants us to believe that Israel is a symbiont inside of the heart of America, but there is another more appropriate name for such an organism: parasite.

“The Iran regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and …”

If we really wanted to make this statement true, it should probably be uttered by the Iranian supreme leader, “The American regime supports violent extremists (Israel) and challenges us (Iran) across the region. It already has a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and …(blah blah blah)…”

Finally, Senator Obama either wants us to believe he is a complete idiot (just as Bush expects us to believe that about him) or he is a liar in the esteemed tradition of liars who have occupied the oval office, both republicans and democrats. Senator Obama decided to echo the propaganda that has infected our airwaves and television sets, “Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. … [M]y goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

I see no point in even trying to disprove this lie again. He never denied the Holocaust (he said that it should be studied by independent historians) and he certainly never threatened Israel (but rather said that Israel will fade from the pages of history).

So how, Senator Obama, do you plan to eliminate a threat that does not exist? I suppose you will do as other presidents before you have done: you will create one.

I’m certainly not voting for McCain, and unless Obama grows a conscience, I’m afraid he has lost my vote as well.

Turkey has once gain placed their so-called “secular” principles above the independence and human rights of their own people by once again upholding the ban on head scarves in universities.

From Democracy Now:

McClellan went on to say President Bush had personally told him he authorized the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity. McClellan says he asked President Bush aboard Air Force One if he was the one who approved outing Plame to the media. McClellan says Bush replied, “Yes, I was.”

McClellan would have to be crazy to lie about something like that, knowing that his very life could be in danger for even suggesting that Bush is a criminal.  Here we have a witness testifying to the public that Bush committed a federal crime (in addition to all of his war crimes), and they still will not impeach him?

Whatever little faith I had left in the democrat majority congress just leaked out onto the floor.

Another good video from MobLogic about the reaction to the acquittal of the police officers who fired 50 shots and killed Sean Bell, unarmed man, on the morning of his wedding.

Click here to watch.